iKaraoke - Karaoke You Can Carry

iKaraoke from Griffin Technology is a low–cost karaoke system that you can carry anywhere. The iKaraoke is a simple microphone like device that plugs into any iPod with a dock connector and processes any music that you own. Music is processed to mute the vocals so that you can fill–in.

The playback can travel by cable to a headset or amplifier, or it can be broadcast wirelessly to an FM receiver up to 20 feet away.

The muting is not perfect, you will still hear the lead singer at least faintly in the background, and, unpredictably, it works better with some songs than others.

The microphone has three reverb settings to enhance your voice and help you compare more favorably with the vocalist you are replacing.

Via: New York Times

Farewell to Floppies

Alternative backup formats, new storage such as the CD–RW and the arrival of mass internet access, consigned the floppy disk to the dusty corner of peoples’ desks and, eventually, the bin.

The first floppy disk was introduced in 1971 by IBM and heralded as a revolutionary device as it replaced the old–fashioned punch–cards. The eight–inch plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide was nicknamed "floppy" because of its flexibility. With technology advancement the disk shrank to five–and–a–quarter inches in 1976. By 1981, Sony shrank it some more – this time to three–and–a–half inches – the standard used to this day.

During 1980s and 1990s, only the floppies provided the essential back–up as well as playing a crucial role in transferring data and distributing software.

By the early 1990s, the growing complexity of software meant that many programs were distributed on sets of floppies. But the end of the decade saw software distribution swap to CD–ROM.

The first nail in the coffin came in 1998, when the iMac was revealed without a floppy disk drive. Then in 2003, Dell banished disk drives from its higher spec machines.

In 1998, an estimated 2 billion floppy disks were sold, according to the Recording Media Industries Association of Japan. Since then global demand has fallen by around two–thirds to an estimated 700 million by 2006.

With computer users increasingly using the internet or USB memory sticks – some of which store 2,000 times the capacity of the floppy disk – to transfer data, floppies are becoming increasingly redundant.

Source: BBC News

Do Your Stuff with Brainwaves

All work – emails, spreadsheets, and Google searches – do every thing with nothing more than brainwaves and mind control. Looking ahead in the future, keyboards and computer mice might be remembered only as medieval–style torture devices for the wrists.

It may not be too long before we get to see these radical changes. Thanks to the sensational research work on brain patterns being done by scientists at Brown University and other institutions, in collaboration with Foxborough, Mass.–based company Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems. The research was published in the British science journal, Nature.

Research is being done on the brain of a 26year old quadriplegic man, Matthew Nagle. Nagle was hooked up to a computer via an implant smaller than an aspirin that sits on top of his brain and reads electrical patterns. Using that technology, he learned how to move a cursor around a screen, play simple games, control a robotic arm, and even – couch potatoes, prepare to gasp in awe – turn his brain into a TV remote control.
Nagle was able to accomplish all this because the brain has been greatly demystified in laboratories over the last decade.

Cyberkinetics and a host of other companies are working on turning those discoveries into real products.

Brain–reading technology is improving rapidly. Sometime back, Sony took out a patent on a game system that beams data directly into the mind without implants. It uses a pulsed ultrasonic signal that induces sensory experiences such as smells, sounds and images.

Stu Wolf, one of the top scientists at Darpa, the Pentagon’s scientific research agency which gave birth to the Internet, believes in about 20years, we’ll have super fast, super tiny computers that make today’s machines look like typewriters, we’ll all be wearing computers in headbands by then.

Controlling devices with the mind is just the beginning. Next, Wolf believes, is what he calls "network–enabled telepathy" – instant thought transfer. In other words, your thoughts will flow from your brain over the network right into someone else’s brain. If you think instant messaging is addictive, just wait for instant thinking.

Via: CNNMoney

Using a Mobile Phone is Safe – Latest Study

A recent research carried out by the Mitsubishi Chemical Safety Institute (MCSI) (sponsored by Japan’s three largest mobile phone operators, SoftBank Mobile Corp, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI Corp) has concluded that high powered radio waves from mobile phone base stations appear to have no adverse effects on human tissue. Experiments involved researchers blasting samples of living cells from brain, skin and lung tissue with radio waves up to 10 times stronger than legal safety limits for mobile base station transmitters.
The researchers claimed that no adverse effects were detectable even after as much as 96 hours of exposure.

This has added further fuel to the ongoing controversy of weather using a Mobile Phone is actually safe. Research into the health effects of mobile phone use has produced a wide range of results.

Another study by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority found that long–term mobile phone use could slightly increase the risk of brain tumours developing on the side of the head where the phone is held. This effect was only observed in cases where the user had owned a mobile phone for more than 10 years.

With each research study concluding with conflicting remarks, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a concrete judgment. It is definitely not possible to stay away from using mobile phones, personally, I would resort to using a mobile only when absolutely necessary. Better still, using a handsfree is convenient, also lets you keep away from radiation if any after all.

Via: iTnews

Charge Your Phone While Riding a Bike

If you are used to riding a bike, why not tap in that extra energy and perhaps charge a phone. That’s the premise behind the new cell phone docking station from Motorola that mounts on a bicycle.

Let your pedals power up your phone battery as you swerve around dodging cars and pedestrians. Not only will you save time, you’ll help the environment too.
Just remember not to take any calls while cycling.

Via: Gizmodo

Make Money from Videos - YouTube

Publishing your videos over YouTube may soon let you make money. With over 70 million videos viewed on the site each day, YouTube, currently owned by Google, may soon start sharing its revenues with its users.

YouTube co–founder Chad Hurley said:

"We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users. So in the coming months we are going to be opening that up."

It’s not immediately clear how much users might receive, or what mechanism would be used. The focus of the initiative looks to be to build a community of YouTube users motivated by making money, rather than their love of videos.

YouTube goes Mobile

The popularity of social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace are increasingly attracting the eyes of mobile phone operators, desperate to increase revenues as the price of making calls continues to fall.

YouTube, the online video sharing site which was recently bought by Google, has always been interested in expanding its services beyond computers. A recent tie–up between YouTube and Verizon has made watching and downloading video on mobiles or PDAs possible. The service has since been expanded to other mobile phone operators like Cingular, Sprint and T–Mobile.

YouTube–Mobile Video Uploads: http://www.youtube.com/mobile